German art director Hermann Warm – known for his distorted set designs in Robert Wiene’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari – once said that “films must be drawings brought to life,” and if there was anyone who knew how to breathe expressive verve into a film, it was Warm; his work in the early years of German film not only spoke for itself, evoking dark pathos through mere appearance, but also established the art director as a key figure in the birthing of German expressionism.
While watching Lee Chang-dong’s Poetry, Warm’s quote felt incredibly relevant to what Chang-dong had achieved on screen; his ability to balance both heavy and light themes through visual projection without resorting to the conventions of sentimental tearjerkers – instead framing the often disregarded beauty of everyday life around perverse subject matter – is warm, breathtaking and, despite the events that unravel, an uplifting experience. It’s a reaffirmation that beauty can be found in even the bleakest of circumstances, the coldest of individuals; all explored in Chang-dong’s grim illustration inspirited by the joys of life and nature.
The opening of Poetry struck me as a throw-back to Fellini’s Nights of Cabiria, except here our drownee’s motives were intentional; we find the body of a schoolgirl floating facedown in a riverbank, muddied up, lifeless, and eventually learn that she decided to commit suicide after months of being raped by a group of six schoolboys. One of these schoolboys happens to be the ill-bred grandson (Da-wit Lee) of Mija (Jeong-hie Yun), a woman in her sixties weathering through bouts with Alzheimer’s and barely scraping by on government subsidies and a part-time maid job; yet her wardrobe is considered “chic”.
Said to have a “poet’s vein”, Mija enrolls in a poetry class that challenges her to “see” the beauty around her and become inspired by it. Of course, this proves difficult after being approached by the father (Nae-sang Ahn) of her grandson’s friend Kibum who requests that she – along with the fathers of her grandson’s other pals – persuade the suicide victim’s mother to settle outside of court; obviously to avert media spectacle and ensure their sons' futures. Cornered on all sides by apathy and immorality, Mija struggles to attain the perception she needs to reach the zenith of poetic inspiration.
Chang-dong manages to contrast elements of beauty with despair in many scenes; one of my favorites being Mija’s lighthearted conversation with the victim’s mother out in the boondocks about gorgeous scenery, apricots and bountiful harvests, all wonderful subjects, but none pertaining to the dark incident she came there to address. Earlier we find Mija in a doctor’s office being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, scrutinizing a bouquet of artificial camellias – which she describes as “flowers of winter, flowers of pain,” providing another instance of anguish found in something beautiful. The way that Chang-dong presents his motifs is crystallized to a point of immediate comprehension, but much of Poetry’s basis, like actual poetry, is left to the viewer’s own interpretation.
The ingenious placement of benign, restrained actress Jeong-hie Yun amongst such self-interested and crooked characters – in itself – is an uncovering of beauty within corruption, leading us to posit the film as a metaphor for something specific, yet the depth that Chang-dong hollows out from such a simple story is practically bottomless; infinite readings can be spun from his creation. Poetry’s final shots are brilliant, summing up 2010’s most touching film with lines from Mija’s poem that symbolizes departure – death – but in a manner that portrays it as something splendid.
9/10
